Woman-led beauty brands are too rare – this one is thriving and changing lives in Haiti

When your beauty brand has fans like Whole Foods and Sephora, you know you’re doing something right. When you’re able to make those beauty products in a socially impactful way, that creates jobs and improves the environment, you’re doing something extraordinary.

For Yve-Car, the CEO and co-founder of successful social enterprise Kreyol Essence, that extraordinary journey all began with a hair catastrophe.

After going to a beautician in Philadelphia in 2008 who burned her hair, Yve-Car searched high and low for black castor oil — a product her mom used often on her hair growing up in Haiti. When natural and West Indian stores turned up short, she asked her mom to send her a bottle.

“When she sent it to me it was in a rum bottle filled with tape — very Caribbean-esque — and I jokingly said ‘for something that we know works so well from home, I should start a business out of it,’” Yve-Car recalls.

To read the full article and learn how Yve-Car managed to secure a partnership with Whole Foods, visit our medium page.